Pages

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

In the short video above, Robert Reich explains the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC), which is the only way to ensure that the person who becomes president wins the popular vote. It’s a good explanation, and a good idea.

In November last year I talked about reforming the Electoral College, and I rated the NPVIC as the second-best option. However, I acknowledged about my preferred option, the Alternative Vote: “in many states adopting this system would be a VERY difficult thing to sell, and impossible in some.” If anything, the chances for the Alternative Vote are even more remote now that the USA has become even more partisan and deeply divided than it was last year.

So, on balance, the only rational path forward is the NPVIC because ensuring that the Electoral College always follows the popular vote is a moral necessity. This isn’t merely about the current occupant of the White House, it’s about ensuring that whoever is elected president—Democrat or Republican—wins the votes of a majority of Americans. The NPVIC is the best—maybe the only—option we have to make that happen.

This video was actually released back in September, but I only saw it today when it showed up in my newsfeed on Facebook. Every once in awhile Facebook’s algorithms do good things.